The Police
8 out of 10 - Great. Good show.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Bonnarroo - Manchester, TN
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Photo: © Jeff Kravitz 2007
When I learned the Police were playing Bonnaroo—and I could spend the same amount of money on one floor ticket in Oakland that I could seeing 50 bands over four days, I was sold. Plus kevchino sent me. What can you say about the unique opportunity to see such an iconic band of one’s formative years? So much of my early life was scored by a parade of hit Police songs.
I don’t even remember the last time I saw a band where I had bought every record and knew every song by heart (even if some hadn’t been heard in a long time). Bringing all that going into this experience, is it possible whatever expectations I had were hopelessly overblown? I really enjoyed the Police concert and yet…it left me with a vague feeling of wanting more (or of wanting more of what I had gone expecting).
For example, I’m not sure more than a few songs sounded true to the original. This might have been playing to the audience—there is a theme of musical exploration that permeates Bonnaroo—or maybe it’s just where the band members are as musicians… but almost every song had either extended jam sections or a pronounced jazzy/reggae feel. The show began with “Message in a Bottle,” an excellent call to arms that summoned us from all over the festival grounds. The way Bonnaroo is scheduled there are no other acts performing during the evening’s headliner, so everybody headed to the main stage until we’d congealed into a great mass singing “Eee-oh-oh, eee-oh-oh…” What is so great about this song is its irony; that words about feeling like a lonely outcast would apply to literally everyone in creation, and here we all were walking united, alone together.
Next was “Syncronicity II,” a tune I have always enjoyed and one of the most high-energy numbers of the evening. “Walking on the Moon” and “Driven to Tears” were both fun, then a super slow version of “When the World Is Coming Down,” began where I don’t think anyone could tell what it was at first. It was very jazzy and minimal at first, then tgot quicker and quicker and hit its natural tempo around the chorus. Since we were sort of far back, we relied wholly on the jumbotron, which was fine. We got to see close-ups of Copeland’s signature gigantor drum set and even his white sneakers working the pedals. I’m sorry if this isn’t exactly relevant, but Sting looked simply amazing. I have marked in my notebook (because I was the biggest nerd at Bonnaroo and was scribbling down notes at a rock concert) that “Sting is a vampire.”
As ‘Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” began, I scrawled, “Does every song have to start in a weird way?!” This would be the only song from Ghosts in the Machine, which most of my favorite songs come from, oh well. I had another funny observation about this time. Earlier in the weekend I had watched comedian David Cross perform and he was saying how one of the highlights of Bonnaroo was the absolute worst dancing by a human being possible, and then proceeded to demonstrate this terrible white-guy dance…sort of an extension of the Eddie Murphy bit from 20+ years ago, but it was funny. And as I looked around I went, “Oh my God, the ‘terrible white-guy’ dance might have been invented because of the Police.” I think the band members even do this dance in the video to this song.
Out came a HUGE GONG. The band began a haunting Middle Eastern tune—quiet yet powerful—which morphed into “Wrapped Around Your Finger.” This was one instance when I really enjoyed a different, slower arrangement; it kept that minimal, eastern flavor throughout and it really let the beauty of the song shine through. Copeland had a crazy stand of tuned mini-cymbals which he played with mallets in his gloved hands. He’s probably the only drummer I can think of who wears gloves and you take him more seriously.
“The Bed’s Too Big Without You” was overly jammy and reggae, however the vocals on the chorus were lovely, soaring higher than the original. They showed lots of close-ups of Sting’s bass which looked lovingly worn, and which I could feel reverberate in my sternum. “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da” I liked better than the original; it also benefited from a more mid-tempo arrangement. It seemed more melodic, maybe less silly if that is possible, though that dance I mentioned earlier was still required.
“Walking In Your Footsteps,” nice, “Can’t Stand Losing You,” again extra reggae… “Roxanne” was greeted with a shower of glow sticks. This is the first big concert I’d been to in a long time and I didn’t know I was supposed to bring hundreds of glow sticks and launch them into the air at appointed times. You know what “Roxanne” sounds like, but it was (surprise) more jazzy and a bit subdued. Sting engaged the audience in lots of call & response singing during it and many of the numbers, and seemed sort of annoyed when we didn’t get the idea right away.
“King of Pain” sounded beautiful and was a huge hit; but in this case I’d wanted to hear something closer to the original which is quite dark. After this, the two couples who’d been dry-humping in front of me through the entire concert finally disengaged. “So Lonely” closed the show and Sting played very enthusiastically. I thought “Keep up that yoga,” just in time for the first encore when he took his shirt off. Oh God and baby Jesus. “Every Breath You Take” was probably their biggest hit ever and was received with great joy. I couldn’t help but recall awkwardly slow dancing through my teenage years. The final closer “Next to You” lost some of its punk feel. Sting changed the phrasing around a bit and didn’t scream the chorus like in the 70s, but it still rocked, getting faster and faster until I thought he might have been trying to kill Stewart Copeland, the jumbotron close-up on his manic bionic feet.
Then there were three bows and that was it. One hour and forty-five minutes later. Comparing notes with my friend from work, she reported they had played three encores, and somewhere in the set was “Don’t Stand So Close To Me,” a version somewhat between the one from 1983 and the later one. Then I said Sting took off his top. “You win.”
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